What's Cheaper to Insure: BMW 328i or Mercedes-Benz C250 Sedan?

Luxury is a reward, even in the entry-level segment. It’s only natural you want to splurge, but you don’t want to go too far. With a price cap of $50,000, you focus your search on respected premium automakers and obviously, you want to protect this new, prized material possession. One of our goals here at CoverHound is to shed light on car insurance costs before you decide which vehicle to purchase.

So with that in mind, we investigated which German entry-level luxury sedan is less expensive to insure -- the BMW 328i or the Mercedes-Benz C250?As we always say, the biggest factors from the perspective of insurance carriers, when determining the cost of insuring a car are: likelihood of theft, cost of replacing parts, safety ratings, and damage susceptibility.

The newly refreshed Mercedes-Benz C250 is no slouch, either. In our eight-car entry-level luxury sedan comparison, the C250 placed third: “It's a competent handler, a solid ride, a real luxury car, and it has pedigree,” we wrote. Mercedes parts are traditionally expensive to replace, and the car will always be popular with thieves because, well, it’s a Mercedes. EPA mileage with the turbocharged 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine mated to the seven-speed automatic transmission is 21/31 mpg.

CoverHound data shows that the 2012 BMW 328i is, on average, 7.8 percent cheaper to insure than is the 2012 Mercedes-Benz C250. The reasons for this difference in insurance costs are pretty straightforward. Though the sedans are alike in many ways -- sticker price included -- they diverge in some significant ways. Drivers have complained about engine noise with the Mercedes C250, often resulting in increased claims and replaced parts. Lastly, Mercedes drivers tend to be 3-4 years older, on average, than those who drive BMWs. Beyond the age of 55, car insurance costs tick up slowly for drivers, and the graph for Mercedes drivers is simply slotted four years over to the right of the BMW curve.

Interestingly, the BMW is almost exactly the same price to insure as another sedan in the class -- the 2012 Audi A4. The difference between the two insurance rates is a mere tenth of a percentage point.Keep this insurance data in mind when splurging on your luxury sedan. Knowing the rates for your top choices can help you pick exactly which car to buy. Become a frugal insurance shopper so you can reallocate those funds to cooler things, like cars.What’s CoverHound? It’s a company committed to building the first brand in insurance shopping that users can actually trust. Consumers can use CoverHound to calculate their personal insurance needs, learn more about top providers — and easily buy the right policy at the right price. Be sure to check out the Coverhound blog for more fun and informative postsPhotos by Julia LaPalme

328i is a much better car than the Merc, really don't see what people see in it, it's not very good looking, it's the same price as the 3 series, less powerful, and (not that it matters for any normal consumer, but...) no manual.